The famous words from the self-proclaimed Sam I Am, remind me of the constant pestering of sales pages I see promoting automated, instant, push-button, magic-pill, panda crushing, penguin snuffing, immediate viral traffic geysers bound to crash the servers of my bank as they hire temps to help count all the money I am about to make. Dr. Seuss with his unnamed character predicted a world of green eggs and ham salesman pushing their wares on us weary Sams just trying to earn a nice honest eight figure income.

Here’s the dirty little secret. It does not matter how good green eggs and ham actually taste.

They could be one of the seven wonders of the world. The single best thing you can do is dig your head in the sand and ignore the next big thing. You see, if there is one word that sums up the secret to business success it is..Focus, Focus, Focus. If there is one word to describe the biggest obstacle to success it is, “Chasing Greener Pastures.” Ok, that’s three words, but the point is the same, opportunities are a dime a dozen, and I don’t care how valuable an info-product is, if it’s not going to help me achieve what I am actively working on, I don’t want to hear about it. If you are planning on buying an info product and you aren’t prepared to focus on executing on the plans, you will most likely not get your money’s worth.

Every day I come across at least 2 or 3 info products, widgets or plugins that promise me first page Google results in less than a day.

If I had a nickel for every nickel I wasted on such products, I would be rich.

After all, a penny saved is a penny earned. I guess the real question is, “Is a penny wasted a lesson learned?” The answer of course is a personal choice of whether I choose to acknowledge the obvious truth or continue to fall for another first page pitch.

Facing reality isn’t always easy, and the appeal of a free lunch is extremely hard to resist. Still, now that I have nearly a decade of search engine marketing experience, there are some telltale signs that scream, “Run The Other Way!”

Let’s say for a second that you discovered a brilliant SEO trick that gets you first page rankings in less than a day. Let’s assume that your goal is to milk this loophole for all it’s worth. How would you exploit this opportunity? First, you would of course build websites exploiting this trick for all of your services and products you sell. If you don’t have any products or services you sell, or if you already milked this for all it’s worth, you would probably sign up for every high paying affiliate program you can find, and build sites exploiting this SEO loophole you discovered. Right? The potential rankings and dollars you can make implementing this strategy on your own would probably justify hiring a team to help and keep you busy non-stop for as long as humanly possible. After all, you found a goldmine, why wouldn’t you mine it for all it’s worth.

This of course begs the question why you would share this secret with anyone…EVER…for… ANY REASON!

Certainly a first page ranking tactic can translate into billions in revenues a year? After all, if Google can sell ad space on that page for tens of billions a year, certainly you can milk a few hundred million out of it.

Still, let’s pretend for a second that for some reason you can’t milk it for billions, or even millions, but you can exploit it a little bit yourself. Perhaps you need a website with a history and aged backlinks that looks natural. Perhaps you are afraid of tripping up a Google red flag, so you need to use it in moderation. In fact, let’s assume that unless this strategy really helps the end user, odds are Google will plug this hole within 6 months, if they aren’t working on it already. After all, it’s pretty far fetched to assume that you know something that no one else knows, especially Google.

So, where you stand, you have a tactic, you milked it for all you can as far your company goes, now you have two choices of how to max out the value from your discovery.

Option one is you create an info-product, or a widget that practically does this trick for anyone without any work, and you sell it. So, you need to create the product, build a sales page, write killer copy, etc.. Seems pretty expensive to me, but let’s just say you manage to do all that on the cheap or on your own, how much money can you really make off of it. Sell if for $17, or perhaps you are really daring and you sell a developer copy (what a scam that is, thank you Microsoft) for a whopping $97. Maybe you have an upsell on your thank you page with an add-on for another $197. This is very far fetched, most SEO ranking widgets I see for sale run you around $17 maybe as much as $37. How many of these do you think you can sell? A dozen? A Hundred? A Thousand? not much more than a thousand. So, you are looking at fetching between a few hundred and maybe $30,000 if you are very good, or very lucky. Perhaps your goal is to build a list, that has longer term value too… Here’s the thing.

Your product won’t work much longer than 6 months; if it wasn’t good enough to justify keeping it a secret, how valuable can it be? How valuable is your reputation with that buyer now?

Most importantly though… Wouldn’t that trick be much more valuable as Link-Bait? Don’t you think if you found a real glitch in Google, that all the SEO blogs will cover you and give you nice juicy links? Don’t you think the credibility alone from that press exposure can help you sell $10k+ a month SEO services? Don’t you think the value of those links for your rankings would be worth more than $30k from selling an info-product?

Bear with me for a moment and imagine you are pitching a client SEO services, and point out to him you discovered this great SEO loophole, don’t you think it will create a fantasy in their mind that working with you will give them an unfair advantage? That you likely have even better tricks up your sleeve that are too valuable to expose publicly? I bet you could fetch $300k a year easy as an SEO consultant just milking the organic traffic and credibility from publishing your secret. Even more if you milk it for all it’s worth.

You see, information has value, but selling a cheap widget, plugin or info-product is very shortsighted when it comes to extracting that value. More importantly though, If the best way to extract the most value from a SEO secret loophole is to publish it to attract high value links, and every SEO worth his weight in salt would know this…

Why would you possibly trust a sales page from a stranger claiming to know SEO, but clearly not practicing what he is preaching?!

Here’s the truth, the best SEO’s on the planet are either publishing their case studies to get links, and selling services to do SEO long term for you…or keeping the tricks to themselves. The rule of thumb they live by is, “Share 90% of what you do with the public and they will gladly pay for the last 10%.”

Don’t believe me? Look at Jeff Sauer who recently proved that a single plus one from a high value and credible plus one account can get first page rankings for a fairly competitive keyword…IN ONLY ONE DAY! That sounds like an incredible Google Glitch to me, or if not a Glitch, than definitely an opportunity. How hard can it be to get exposure for your website to a relevant Google plus account? In fact, I bet a dozen info marketers will create sales pages and widgets that do this for you, and sell it like the hottest thing since bread (even hotter than sliced bread).

The facts on the ground are… most of the tricks you are buying are available for free.

Even the big info marketers always provide value in free videos with great information first. In fact, many of them give you their best stuff for free to get you join their list, trust them, and buy from them when they launch a real product.

So, if you want to find the next big Google Glitch, put your wallet back in your pocket, cuz paying for it should be the first red flag that the seller doesn’t understand SEO.

Let’s be honest for a minute. Info Products often offer great value, but that’s only when they are created from the perspective of how can I enrich the reader’s life. How can I help them achieve their goals and dreams.

However, when the product is created from the perspective of…”How can I get people to give me their money. What do they want, and how can I convince them that I can provide it for them…for a fee of course.” That product is likely a waste of your money.

If there is one lesson I can impart on you from this post it is this…”Opportunities are everywhere around you, all you need to do is open your eyes, so it’s ok to miss out on the next big thing, It’s ok to walk away from a pressure sales pitch, it won’t cramp your style one bit.” In fact, if you are focused on whatever you are doing to make a living, the next big thing might be the last straw that breaks your back.

About David Melamed

David Melamed is a Thought Leader on Search Engine Optimization and Marketing featured on Mashable, Search Engine Land, Marketing Land, Adotas, and Shoemoney.
David writes regularly at DavidMelamed.com offering tactical tips, tricks, and startegies to find, engage, nurture, and retain customers. David Melamed is the Founder of Customer Hunter Corp. A content development and promotion agency and Tenfold Traffic a search marketing agency.

Couldn’t agree more, especially for a new internet marketer. God knows I went in so many directions when I first started out….I became so frustrated and almost quit. It took me six months before I started to focus on one or two things and do them well.

The hardest part is just to keep on focusing on that one thing even if you aren’t successful and ignore all the noise out there.

David – Great post. I just published one yesterday – “Sick of SEO Snakeoil Salesmen” but yours gets deeper into the seedy underground world of plug-in and “Google Killer Systems” sales.

I’m on a few of the marketing forums out there trying to ebb the flow of hype with real world advice to create great content and create a fully developed marketing plan to get links. But no one cares! Also its like being the kid with one finger in the leaky dike wall that is getting more holes and leaks by the second.

This is a post that everyone looking for the short cut tool that gets them on the first page of Google NEEDS to read. OR maybe not….OR maybe there is no way to stop it anyway….lots of lazy people looking for a short cut that is elusive and is promised by the next big thing they can buy.

Bottom line great post that hit too close to home in the world I live in everyday.

Love the post David? Appreciate the shout as well. For now my site has no agenda other than what you say. Build an audience for when I really want to launch something. Maybe that will never happen, but who knows. Free information is all around us!

Thanks Jeff, not just for loving the post, but for proving my point and sharing your case study. It turned me into an avid Google+ user from just a visitor. You earned the shout out and link, the way everyone should approach earning links

Great points, I have had encounter such companies just knows how to take money, there are a lot out there selling crap services. Sad to say a lot of clients get scammed by their genuine-looking proposals.

Hi, I am also guilty of always looking out for the next best thing. Why is it we never trust what we are currently busy with and think there is something better. Instead we should just buckle down and focus.

if only people knew how close they were to success… Napolean Hill talks about a guy who stopped drilling 3 feet from a massive gold mine. Getting over the hill to success is hard, but once you pass that milestone, it starts flooding in.

Thanks Elisabeth, glad you enjoyed. These sales letters are pros at distracting us from what we need to focus on. In fact, the copywriters go into thinking, what can we do to yank a guy or gal out of his world and into ours with just a few words in a headline.

Hi Dave
I really enjoyed your post had me laughing from beginning to end. If America is getting “green egg and ham” then in England we are getting “cold spam and turnip”. I started my blog over six months ago, and have spent hours studying and looking for SEO info for free.
If your efforts don’t turn up results don’t buy this rubbish when we give it away for free!!!! I might not know much about SEO but simple guide lines and research will tell you the rest. Great post Dave!